Bought and cured a new molcajete this weekend, here’s my first salsa.

2 jalapeños
2 jitomates
3 tomatillos
2 garlic teeth
About à tablespoon of coarse salt
Half a lime
Chopped cilantro (about a palm’s worth)

Veggies toasted on the cast iron for a few mins and then straight to the molcajete for a gentle massage, cilantro chopped and added after the veggies were properly acquainted. Half a large lime spritzed over the top and mixed in.

Just a sauce i constantly play with and sell from time to time

Roasted peppers, mostly ghost

Roasted tomatoes

Roasted garlic

Rehydrated ancho chiles

Onion

Salt, pepper, chicken bouillon powder

Blitzed in the blender until it's the consistency I like

Water bath canned to preserve.

Made with fresh veggies from the garden.

My try at a salsa verde. For some reason, I could never crack the code, I don't know why. Found some Hatch Chiles at my local grocery and figured what the hell. Apparently, that was it.

Only a couple things pictured are homegrown. I grew the Jalapeños Zapotec from seeds. They're mean little heirlooms from Oaxaca and they certainly are temperamental, highly recommended though. Also the green, cherry sized tomatoes are Lucky Tigers. They're more vegetal but have a tangy-sweetness to them that is really unique. Recipe below.

Ingredients

- 6-8 cloves, garlic roasted skin on

- 6 Tomatillos dehusked, washed and roasted

- 4 Jalapeños or Serranos, roasted

- 3 Hatch Chiles, roasted and de-skinned

- 1/2 White Onion, roasted

- 1/2 bunch of cilantro, stems and leaves

- 1/2 T. Kosher salt

- 1 cube Knorr de Pollo

- Juice of 1 lime (about 2 T)

Directions

1. Chuck everything on a pan and coat evenly with just a touch olive oil. Turn on HI broil and roast everything until brown and charring.

2. Garlic will be done first, pull and cool. Remove skin and put in blender. Add Cilantro, lime juice, Knorr de Pollo, and Salt at this time as well.

Note: If your cilantro has longer stems, cut off enough so you only have about an inch or two of stem left below the leaves. Too much stem gets a little woody and not enough stem you lose out on some flavor balancing.

1. Pull small tomatoes, if using, when they start splitting. Add to the blender.

2. Pull Hatch Chiles when charred and put in a plastic bag to sweat.

3. While Hatch chiles sweat, wait for tomatillos and onions to finish charring. Add to blender when done along with any juices in pan.

4. Remove skin from Hatch chiles, add to blender.

5. Blend to desired consistency

6. Let meld for 1 hour, if you can wait that long.

7. Buen Provecho.

Let me know what you think if you try it, think I finally nailed a verde. Hopefully I can access Hatches more frequently.

First time growing peppers and making salsa. Turned out amazing!

12 Roma tomatoes
9 garlic cloves
6 habaneros
6 jalapeño
3 yellow onions
Cilantro
Lime
Chicken bouillon
Salt

Tossed in olive oil and broiled on high 5 minutes per side

Pulsed in food processor with cilantro, lime juice, chicken bouillon, and salt.

Happy Sunday fellow salsa lovers!

Shooting from the hip on this one and melding a couple recipes together. The garden has blessed me with an abundance of tomatillos.

About a pound of tomatillos, I simmered 3/4 and left the last few raw . With the tomatillos I simmered I added about a 1/4 of a large white onion and 2 serranos.

Once simmered enough I added just the cooked tomatillos, serranos and onion to a blender. I then added the raw tomatillos, 3 habaneros and a couple cloves of garlic. Pulsed it a few times, tasted and decided to add a bit of the water I simmered in, a couple sprigs of cilantro, juice from one lime, salt to taste and a pinch of MSG.

I loved the result. Spicy, bright and tangy. The blend of cooked and raw tomatillos really shows off the range of flavors in this incredible fruit.

Happy cooking!

Just a simple cast iron roasted salsa!

Tomas x2
Romas x2
Garlic x3 cloves
Onion 1/2
Chili x2
Serrano x1
Chicken seasoning x1 tsp
Salt x1 tsp
Couple cracks of pepper

And some culture and love!!

Smelled like nostalgia in my house. Recipe is the last photo.

I remember my mom making this all the time growing up and the first whiff took me right back to our kitchen as a kid.

I left the sugar out of this one but it’s got a great balance of sweet and heat flavor.

Made a cooked salsa roja with roasted chilhuacle and cascabel peppers and added a dry chiltepin and a green habanero for some extra heat. Added roasted garlic, salt and heirloom tomatoes. Cooked everything in a saucing pan and added the rinds at the end and kept some salsa for sunny aide up eggs or whatever comes to mind.

All the peppers and the tomatoes (la cadero and zapoteco) come from.our garden, so I am specially proud of this quick and dirty salsa.

Just started throwing stuff in a blender. Came up with peach ghost pepper. Has some lime cilantro roma onion and garlic. Idk but its good

Well, after an entire summer of caring for my two little baby pepper plants, my big payday is here…a small bowl of salsa! Actually pretty tasty and different from what I’m used to making since I typically cook with dried chiles and jalapeños.

Recipe (quantities approximate, seasonings to taste):
1/2 dozen banana peppers
Dozen cayenne peppers
1 tomatillo
3 pearl onions
Half head garlic
Oil
Sugar
Salt
Knorr bouillon powder
Annatto powder
Goya bitter orange marinade
Vinegar
Water

Started by getting the tomatillo, onion and garlic (in its peel to protect it from burning) tatemada in a dry pan. Removed, added a healthy glug of oil and threw in my peppers when oil was hot. After a few mins, I added some sugar to the pan, not blending it with the peppers at first. When the sugar started to brown and bubble slightly I stirred it in with the peppers and took the pan off the heat. I then added my other veggies back to the pan so they could all get coated with a little oil.

Veggie mixture went into blender with a bit of water. Blended and then adjusted for taste and colour (thank you annatto powder). The bitter orange marinade was just something I had in the fridge. Wanted a bit of tang so added a splash but it wasn’t enough so I came back with some vinegar.

Provecho!

This one turned out a lot better than I expected. I would've taken progress photos, but I didn't think it would be very good.

500g roma tomatoes

65g white onion

4 cloves garlic

2 habaneros

1 weirdly long habanero-like pepper from a redneck at the farmer's market (probably just a habanero but I'm not certain)

8 dried arbols

65g peanuts, roasted

1 tablet maggi caldo pollo bouillon

8 small pieces dried sweetened pineapple

4 pieces dried sweetened mango

Juice of 3 limes

Salt + sugar to taste

Roast the tomatoes, onion, garlic for 15 minutes at 450. I then used a "grill gun" cooking torch to blacken all the veggies other than the garlic; if you don't have one, you can broil instead of roasting. I blackened the habaneros (and the weird probably-habanero) but did not roast them; they were small enough that the grill gun cooked them through.

Toast the arbols lightly and soak in warm water for 15 minutes. Soak the pineapple and mango for a minute or two, then remove from water.

Blend charred veggies, garlic, arbols, half the dried fruit, 50ml arbol water, lime juice, peanuts, bouillon until very smooth, about a minute. Adjust flavor with remaining fruit, more lime juice, salt + sugar.

Super simple, but mostly homegrown purple pico de gallo: homegrown Norfolk Purple cherry tomatoes and cilantro, with red onion and a squeeze of lime. I generally don't add peppers (base dish was spicy enough), though I have a dozen or so varieties growing in my garden. I grow more than 15 varieties of tomatoes, so pico, caprese, bruschetta, and many other fresh tomato salads and toppings are on the menu daily.

Norfolk Purple tomatoes are GMO to get a solid purple color throughout and increase anthocyanins. Sorry for the out-of-focus shot, getting used to a new phone

Edit: One more time - this is a mild, fresh salsa made as a topping for a very spicy dish that itself contained a significant amount of chiles and other complex flavors, thus I did not want to add even more heat to the plate. It is not a table salsa for chips or a topping for a mild dish. I craft each of these salsas specifically for the dish it is being served with. Some may have no chiles like this one (posted here after lunch to show off the tomatoes), many have chiles like buena mulata, Hungarian hot wax, or jalapeño plucked from my garden, or even just a dash of one of the many dried chile blends sitting by the stove. Salsas, especially mild salsas, do not require chiles - other spices and flavors such as lime, garlic, cilantro, cumin, etc. contribute to what gives a salsa a distinctive Mexican/Latin flavor and complements Mexican/Latin dishes

My dad just promised me that If I make an amazing salsa, he would let me get a tattoo. How this came about is we have been buying this charred salsa roja for awhile, the only problem is its pricey and gets eaten super quick.

Any tips, recipes, or knowledge about salsa would be sooo greatly appreciated!

EDIT: Thank you guys all so much for the advice! This is making me more excited to start making salsa.

Here’s what I’ve got:

Boatload of grape tomatoes from my garden, probably two quarts or so

Tomatillos

2 jalapenos

2 habaneros

Red onion

Yellow onion

Scallions

Garlic

Cilantro

Lime juice

And a decent spice pantry.

My ordinary course of action would just be to stick the tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peppers in a pot with salted water, give them a little boil, then blend with cilantro, lime, and salt.

I’ve not cooked with tomatillos yet, but I saw them at the farmers market and wanted to give it a try. I mfeel like I’ve got bones for a good table salsa here, but just curious on proportion and technique.

EDIT:
Ended up just going with my gut. Dumped tomatoes, tomatillos (quartered), yellow onion + leftover chunk from the fridge, a head of garlic, both jalapeños and one habanero in the pot, boiled for 20 minutes with salted water, bay leaf, and about 2 tsp of epazote.

Removed the solids to my food processor and worked in two batches to get restaurant-y consistency, and blended in a handful of the cilantro leaves and stems, green and some of the white bits of 2 scallions. Added salt to taste and some ground chipotle pepper to round it out. Didn’t need lime because acid from the tomatoes lifted it enough.

Made a lot, as you might imagine. There’s a lot of good flavor in there, it’s not super spicy - which is good. Feels like it could use a little umami, but not sure exactly how to make that happen - I tried putting a dabs of Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce into little tasters. Worcestershire worked a little better, but wasn’t good enough to put into the rest of the salsa. I’m going to let it settle out overnight and see if the flavor changes.

I was reflecting and looking at some statistics the other day and it hit me that I have made so much more salsa than I would have ever imagined. If you have been following along on my other posts, I am still going steady on my side gig selling fresh salsa locally.

Pictures so you can see the volume per batch which makes about 850 containers. You can also see the 600lb chained together groceries that I wheel through the store and get many looks and questions.

Gone through 18,000lbs of tomatoes! This is so much weight and it cements why I kinda chuckle at people when they ask if I grow my own tomatoes for the salsa :)

I am currently in 6 stores and 3 breweries/beer bars. I am trying to get into a few more grocery stores in town but it is extremely difficult to jump through the corporate hoops.

I made a shelf stable version of my roasted salsa. This was my first foray into co-packing. This allows me to have a long shelf life on my product, get on the shelves in addition to the refrigerator, and allows me to not have to make it!

I am planning on keeping it going and seeing how I can continue to grow and expand. I need to find a specialty food distributor in Northern California to help me get out of Chico.

Happy to answer any questions anyone has.

Appreciate the support in this community as always.

Much Love!

I had to process some jalapenos from my balcony, but had no tomatillos so I looked up this recipe on the web and played a bit with it

- handful of jalapenos

- 1 green ball pepper

- 1 very small onion

- 4 garlic cloves

fried everything in ~3/4 cup of oil and added salt, oregano and chicken broth, also juice of half a lime

Turned out good, really emphasized the taste of the jalapenos and pepper.

3 large tomatoes

4 cups of cherry tomatoes

2 onions

7 garlic cloves

4/6 large bell peppers

4/6 poblanos peppers

4/6 jalapeno peppers ( adjust for your heat purposes or add serranos if you want it to be fiery hot that's up to you)

salt, pepper, cumin, coriander, Bay leaves, 1tsp all (or it just for your liking.)

1/2 cup lemon juice

one jar of tomato paste (optional for thickness)

cilantro optional if I were to use it in this for this batch I would use one bundle. Chop up then immersion blender all the way to desire to consistency. I added a handfull measured out for the last two jars.

enjoying the fridge

If you decide to water bath 20 minutes after rolling boil and 5 to 10 minutes to cool before pulling out and setting.

Each one has different combinations of broiled tomatillo, broiled tomato, broiled jalapeno, broiled serrano, dried habanadas, and chipotles in adobo. All have broiled garlic, broiled and/or raw onion, cilantro, lime, salt, chicken stock powder

4 romas

3 jalapenos

1 red pepper

Large white onion

Half head of garlic

Everything lightly oiled and salted, grilled at 600f until charred.

Blitzed with the juice of two limes, half a bunch of cilantro, salted to taste and 10mL of black pepper.

Delicious.